Talk to me, Baby

My little girl has a boyfriend--well, in as much as a 4th grader can have a boyfriend. Their relationship consists of passing little love notes back and forth at school and talking on the phone occasionally.

His name is Leyton, but Erin seems to have a speech impediment when it comes to saying his name. She pronounces it, "Lay-un." The "t" sound is mysteriously missing. And we tease her endlessly about it, because we're cool like that. (You know, just in case she's missing out on some bullying in these formative years. We wouldn't want to deprive her of any normal life experiences, you know.) (I kid.) (Well, actually, we do tease her, but we're not mean about it. Like, she doesn't actually cry or anything. She laughs. I swear.) (And, yes, as a matter of fact, we do suck as parents.) (Also? I love italics.) (And parenthesis.)

Anyway.

Yesterday, she dreamily said, "I just love to hear Lay-un's girly voice when he answers the phone..."

Um, yeah. Maybe you shouldn't share that tidbit of information with him. Like, ever.

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Focus, woman, FOCUS!

I spent most of the day unable to focus on work.

One of my friends, my wonderful friend, Nicole, informed me that she had booked a 7-day Disney cruise going to Castaway Cay (the Bahamas) for this June. She is able to do this because they have one less child and a huge military discount. ($2k off the total price.)

Nicole & her daughter went with us on our Disney cruise last summer, but her husband was deployed overseas for six months, so he was unable to join us as originally planned. She vowed then that they'd plan a cruise once he returned.

Somehow, selfishly, I'm sad. See, Nicole and I spent eighteen long months dreaming, planning, talking, shopping... all for the cruise. We drove out of town and bought formals together! We special ordered personalized shirts! We even made CDs full of vacation music to get us "in the mood." It's all we could think about for an entire year-and-a-half.

Kind of goes back to what my mom used to tell me: "Sometimes the anticipation is more fun than the realization."

In our case, both the anticipation and realization were fun. It was eighteen months' worth of bliss!

So now my sweet friend is going without me, and while I'm happy for her, I'm also sad. I feel like I should be there. But I can't--we can't. Money is tight and it's just impossible. Disney is so expensive! About triple the price of other cruise lines. (But when you're a Disney freak -- like me -- you don't care! And Disney banks on this, of course. There are a lot of us freaks out there and they know it!)

So I spent most of the day sad, and dreaming, and scheming, and depressed some more.... realizing it ain't gonna happen. How pathetic am I? (Don't answer that.)

I know I am blessed BEYOND BELIEF with a wonderful husband, two amazing kids, OUR HEALTH, great jobs, a warm home, good food, incredible friends... just all over awesomeness. I have no right to pout! And yet... here I am.

I can just hear my mom scolding, "Susan! Really! You should be ashamed of yourself!"

Hey, they don't call me Princess or Baby Favorite for nothin', ya know. I can't disappoint my fans by being too nice or reasonable... ;-)

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